The Nissan Path

I supposed this is a little review. Just trying to give back to the site and give up the information I was looking for when I wanted after market parts.



Description
This is the image out the on the web for the part. But this is not the part I received. I will have to get legitimate pictures of my setup this evening. Its the typical "filter on a stick" setup. Long aluminum tube from the throttle body all the way to where the stock air box was. The quality and finish on the tube its-self appears very good. All the same ports and hook ups. The kit comes with a new semi-sealed air box and all hoses, connectors & protectors you will need.

The Bad
1. The intake pipe seems to be either slightly short, slightly off angle or a combination of both at the end that meets with the throttle body. Extra clamping force on the silicone connector and hose clamps seems to alleviate any problems. Mine fell off during testing but clamping it down harder seemed to eliminate that problem and compensate for the pipe not being a perfect fit.

2. Aesthetically it makes the front of the engine look like something is missing. Well, because it is. Since the stock intake pipe is integrated with a portion of the engine cover you lose that part of the cover. In this case, if you want looks go with an AFE that way you don't lose any of the cover pieces.

5. Support for the new air box is lacking. They skipped a lower mounting point for some reason so the box is firmly attached but seems like it could be forced downwards and bent easily.

4. The breather hose that connects to the intake tube is not a molded hose as the stock one. Just a long piece of rubber hose. Does it cause any issues, not that I could see. It make kink at some point. More or less an aesthetics thing. Being a Nismo product I would have expected a molded hose. I may, at some point, put a connector in the stock hose and add a length of straight hose to the end to make it fit. The connection would be hidden by the top engine cover.

5. Speaking of Nismo, the pipe just has some cheezy thick foil sticker on it proclaiming Nismo. Otherwise you wouldn't know that part as being anything from a taiwanese knock off. Which it very well may be. I would just hope not since I purchased from a dealer and it appeared to be sealed from Nissan along with all Nissan documentation that matched the other Nissan parts I've purchased. Oh, there is nismo engraved on the top of the airfilter.

6. I had forgotten one other problem. The Nismo airbox doesn't have enough nor the correct sized holes to mount a breather hose and a wire bundle. Both items have mounting clips that are meant to be inserted in roughly 3/8" holes. There is one such hole on the new box but the wiring bundle pops out because the hole is too large, the breather hose has a different style of connector so I'm, waiting to see if that one pops out. The items in question are circled in red.

Conclusion

Do I like it, yea, what the hay, sure I do. Is there room for improvement, of course. Will there ever be any, doubtful. But maybe if others post their experiences with K&N, AFE, etc, you'll be able to form your own opinion about which you want to purchase. I have no dyno printout to show and I have no butt dyno feeling to post. Going off any past independent report of an intake mod I'm sure it added something, exactly what is unknown. I will add my own pictures tonight.

Did it make the truck much louder (at idel and WOT) ?

Volume at idle, **edit** volume at idle is not discernably louder at all.**edit** During light to moderate acceleration there is a low growl and/or an air sucking noise, noticeable but not irritating. At WOT around 4k rpm's and up it gets really loud. I haven't tried leaving in a lower gear like 3rd or 4th and getting up to a speed where I'm constantly around 4k rpms but the throttle is mostly closed to see how the volume is at that point.

blink32 wrote:Volume at idle, I'm sure its a bit louder but not really noticeable. During light to moderate acceleration there is a low growl and/or an air sucking noise, noticeable but not irritating. At WOT around 4k rpm's and up it gets really loud. I haven't tried leaving in a lower gear like 3rd or 4th and getting up to a speed where I'm constantly around 4k rpms but the throttle is mostly closed to see how the volume is at that point.

Congrats on the CAI!... Should be better when you get the exhaust installed... Looking forward to the pictures........ Triffid

As promised, pictures.........

Thanks for the response.

That looks like a great setup.

I don't think it really will fit my needs though, I do a fair amount of towing in the summer, so that puts me at heavy throttle on the highway at about 2500-3000 rpms for long periods of time, so get the feeling that might be too loud in that range. The wife used to get really annoyed on long trips back from the lake in my Bronco pulling the boat (pretty loud...she wasn't a big fan of the non working AC either though).

2500 - 3000 rpm with no load doesn't really make much intake noise. But yea, towing you'll probably need a bit more throttle opening which may make it more prevalent.

Blink32,

Is the diameter of the pipe any bigger than the stock one? If it's not it may be more practical to go with a AFE and a spacer. I know for other applications like on a G35 they go to 3" from 2.5"

Ride2Live

I'll have to measure that and post. I hadn't thought of that before.

I did run some trials today and at 3500-4000 rpm with part throttle there is definitely more engine noise, but I can't hear the intake over it.

i just ordered mine...

how long did it take you to install it?

do you still have it in? what are your thoughts of it now that you've had it for a while?

Yup, I've still got it.

I would say it took around an hour to install. But only because I was slow and methodical. As I noted there are some mounting issues (or at-least were) for the extra cabling so I tried a bit of this and a bit of that. You could knock it out in 30 mins easy if you just blasted it in.

I'm not sure on how I feel about it. I'd like to be able to hear the exhaust at WOT more than the intake I hear now, but I digress. I'd like to think it has improved hp and tq but I have no way of knowing if it really did. And I'd like to think that it does as much or more for the actual air filtering as the stock filter did but with the way K&N and other manu's gain horse power by actually filtering less it's a gamble. I might go back to stock some day.

do you have to oil the filter? or is it a dry filter?

IIRC, its an oiled filter. I haven't cleaned it in a while, I guess I'll do that this weekend.

crap!

did yours come oiled in the box? or did you have to buy the oiling kit?

which kit/oil do you use for your CAI?

It does come oiled but I have an old K&N filter cleaning kit that I re-oil my others with. Really you could use warm water and any dish detergent and then any thin oil like Machine Oil or air tool oil, etc.